1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to the art of reloading rifle and gun cartridges, and more particular relates to the art of trimming the length of cartridge cases to prepare them for the reloading operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a bullet is fired from a cartridge or resized during reloading, the cartridge case expands radially and longitudinally. Thus, during subsequent reloading of a cartridge case it is necessary to resize it so that a bullet may be properly seated and so that the reloaded cartridge will freely and fully enter the chamber of a rifle or gun. Special dies and jigs are used for resizing the radial dimensions of the case. Case trimmers are used to trim cartridge cases to their proper length.
Prior art case trimmers generally provide a collet for grabbing a rim, or head, of the cartridge case. Typically, the collet is tightened onto the case by a threaded hand crank which pulls the collet into a reducing diameter chamber, thus closing the collet onto the case. Prior art case trimmers also have a cutting blade mounted on a shaft that is slidable through a fixed collar. With the case and blade shaft aligned along a longitudinal direction, the blade is set against a mouth of the case and rotated by a hand crank to precisely and evenly trim the case to a predetermined length. An adjustable collar may be used as a jig so that it is only necessary for the operator to turn the blade against the case in a rotating manner until the adjustable collar abuts against a stop thereby preventing further cutting of the blade against the case when the proper length is achieved.
Prior art case trimmers require several turns of the collet adjustment screw to lock a case in position and require many rotations of the blade to properly trim the case to length. Often, bullet reloaders will reload hundreds of cartridges in one session which can make the repetitive task of tightening the collet onto the case and cranking the blade against the mouth of the case very time consuming and tedious. Thus, there is a need in the industry to provide a case trimmer in which the case is easily loaded into the case trimmer and the cutting operation is simplified without loss of precision or adjustability.